Everything You Wanted to Know About Having Three Kids Under Three

Emily is a lifestyle blogger at {Our Nest In The City}. There she writes about life with several little children in one big city and the joys and challenges of doing so.

My daughter is a little fire cracker. Just starting to talk and express herself clearly, and physically thriving and advancing in leaps and bounds. She just started daycare a couple days per week, which has been incredible for her socially and linguistically (she was a late talker, and her daycare is in our second language, French). She's still two-years-old but often we accredit far more wisdom and responsibility to her than her age presumes. But it's not just us being crazy parents. It's because she's the eldest of three siblings already.

You read that right! And before you ask, I'll just go ahead and answer your questions because I get the same ones all the time. *Yes, I love the idea of three kids under three* (our third is due in September, four weeks after our eldest turns three). *No, we didn't adopt or have twins* — I've been pregnant for a long time! *No, I don't love pregnancy or the newborn stage*. *Yes, we planned it this way*. And *no, we're not sure if we're done!* Surprised? Me too.

Starting on the road to parenthood my husband and I knew little of babies and children. We just knew we wanted a few and that we'd learn as we went since we were among the first of our friends to embark on the journey. When we got pregnant the first month of "trying" it felt a bit like someone hit fast forward. We went from talking about trying to have a baby, to trying to have a baby, to being pregnant in a matter of weeks. Likewise, after she was born, our eldest was not the easy baby you might assume someone who has three kids under three would have had! She was tongue tied, recovering from birth was a long and slow process for me, breastfeeding didn't take quickly or easily, and we have no local family to lend a hand. But we still loved her and being parents so we opted to forgo birth control. So naturally, when our eldest was four months old, we were pregnant again.

The second pregnancy was, again, no honeymoon. If not harder than my first because I had a little baby to care for. Gone were the days of napping when I was tired — instead I was teaching my wild eldest child how to crawl, scoot, and enjoy solid foods. Thankfully she was sleeping through the night around five months or we might have all gone crazy! By the time my second child was born, my first still wasn't even walking. It was physical and exhausting, but I had two adorable babies to love and our home and hearts felt so full.

Watching our oldest two become best friends over this past year has been such a joy. Of course, they fight and hurt one another, and don't always share, but they truly are thick as thieves. The mere 14 months that separates them feels like nothing, and people often mistake them for twins. They share a room, a nightly bath, often clothes and cloth diapers (before our eldest was potty trained), all of their toys, and each and every meal. My hands are full with my one- and two-year-old kids, but the desire to expand our family didn't disappear after our second child was born, though many thought it would (including us!).

When our second child turned one, my husband and I began to talk seriously about family planning. Did we want to adopt? Have more biological kids? Should we start birth control again? Should he get a vasectomy? Where should we go from here? That month baby fever hit hard, seemingly out of nowhere, and just as we'd packed away or sold most of our baby things. But the journey to a third child was nothing like the first two.

Our third child certainly has a mind of her own — that we know though we've never met her! Unlike her older brother and sister, she wasn't conceived right away. We charted fertility and followed the advice of all the experts, but six months passed and we were still a family of four. When we did conceive, we were thrilled — maybe even more so than with our first two because it didn't come easily.

Then, at our first doctors appointment my OB tried unsuccessfully to find the baby's heartbeat and we were terrified and crushed. An internal ultrasound later revealed that she was just hiding and indeed alive and well. The next week, hours of horrible cramping in my abdomen sent me to the emergency room and at 11 weeks, I was certain I was miscarrying. For the second time, we were greeted with a wave of relief and allowed ourselves to exhale. I'm now in my third trimester, and have enjoyed a healthy pregnancy — something I am absolutely not taking for granted!

In a few short months we'll add a third child to our brood, weeks away from our daughter's third and our son's second birthdays. Our house is often messy. There are toys everywhere — but hey they can all share the same
ones! The car is permanently filled with car seats and sprinkled with the dust of a thousand Cheerios. We have a triple — yes you read that right — *triple* stroller. Costco is our best friend for baby wipes. Money is tight but we're making it work. And we couldn't be happier.

Three kids in three years is hard and refining and incredible and not for the faint of heart... And I highly recommend it!

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